evolutionary psychology, Noam Chomsky, autonomic nervous system

Evolutionary psychologists use interviews and questionnaires to depict and observe people's behaviors. However, the argument against this method is that these survey tools do not always describe a person's actual decisions. What description of culture does this fall under?

Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist who posited that children take the surface structure of language and infer an underlying deep structure. Which of the following is FALSE regarding language development?

- Children combine words in the same way as adults.
- Children in different cultures go through similar stages of linguistic development.
- Children not exposed to adult language may invent a language of their own.
- Infants can derive simple linguistic rules from sounds.

The degree to which differences occur between the left hemisphere and right hemisphere of the brain can be considered relative, as various cognitive processes are spread across each half. However, which of the following is TRUE regarding specific functions of each hemisphere?

- Mathematical abilities are subject to the left hemisphere only.
- Language and abstract thinking are determinant in the right hemisphere only.
- Emotions, such as fear and sadness, are dominant in the right hemisphere.
- Both hemispheres perform all functions equally, but in different magnitudes.

John has had a crush on Amanda since seventh grade math. Every time he sees her, he feels like his heart is about to pound out of his chest, and his hands begin to get very sweaty. What biological element is at work in this situation?

- The autonomic nervous system
- The central nervous system
- The parasympathetic nervous system
- The somatic nervous system

Split brain patients are people whose corpus callosum has been cut (for medical purposes) resulting in a loss of communication between the left hemisphere and right hemisphere of the brain. If a picture is flashed to a split brain patient, which side of the brain will verbally communicate the picture?

- The right hemisphere
- Neither
- Both will have equal opportunity to verbally communicate the picture
- The left hemisphere

Solution Preview

1) This question is actually fairly obvious. Evolutionary and sociobiology theories deal with the rationale behind why certain behaviours are more prominent than others from an evolutionary standpoint, not necessarily about the determination of which is more likely. Stereotypes refer to specific categories of populations. Does the question mention any differentiation in categories of people? Convenience vs. representative samples refer to choosing a sample from a population that is actually more likely to reflect the overall population versus just picking a sample out of convenience, whatever convenience is (e.g. I decide to survey my town about an issue, but only ask my friends from a university there). The final option is "what people say vs. what people do", which explains itself. This would leave "What people say versus what they do" as the only viable option.

2) Noam Chomsky postulated that there are different structures to language, of which children are ...

Solution Summary

Specific questions regarding different biases in psychology, the functions of different hemispheres, Noam Chomsky and the functions of different nervous systems are addressed briefly.